For me, the packaging is the most interesting aspect of Ormaie’s story—see the photo above! The bottles and labels are classic French elegance, while the beechwood tops are fun nods to the work of Ettore Sottsass and other postmodern designers.

However, the Times (especially in the print version) focused on topic of all-natural perfumery…

Joann Pai for the New York Times

I had to laugh a little at Ormaie’s suggestion that they’re doing something novel by offering all-botanical fragrances.

Here’s a quote that feels somewhat disingenuous to me:

In the spring of 2016, [Bouybues] approached Jonak with the idea to make a wholly natural perfume — and she promptly told him it couldn’t be done. “I heard myself and thought, ‘Why did I say that to Baptiste?’” she reflects. “All of my life, I have been driven by challenges. When someone says, ‘It’s impossible,’ I think, ‘O.K., I’m going to do it.’ So, I went back and told him, ‘We’re going to try it.’”

And then there’s a bit about working with perfumers—whose names are never actually given—and asking them to do something so unexpected and unorthodox.

“We were asking them to make a cookie without the eggs, flour and milk,” Jonak explains, “but it had to taste like a real cookie.” It took “hundreds and hundreds of modifications to get to the notes we were looking for,” Bouygues adds.

I find it hard to believe that a “veteran fragrance consultant” (as Jonak is described) thought that making an all-natural fragrance was impossible or even a challenge.

As I like to remind students in my fragrance-culture classes, until the invention of synthetic fragrance molecules in the mid-1800s, all perfumery was natural perfumery, and it’s never really gone away. Natural personal fragrance always been available, albeit in limited ranges and often “crunchy” formats. (Hands up if you wore sandalwood or patchouli oil in college!)

Over the past twenty years, however, natural perfumery has undergone a revival. Skilled and creative perfumers, working with carefully selected botanicals, have reintroduced natural fragrance to us as something authentic, artistic…even luxurious.

When I first started attending fragrance meet-ups in 2005 and writing for Now Smell This in 2007, there were already some fantastic all-natural perfumes waiting to be encountered in upscale department stores: Aftelier at Henri Bendel, Strange Invisible Perfumes at Barneys, Ajne and Honoré des Prés at Bergdorf Goodman, Patyka (now discontinued) at Takashimaya.

Basically, the idea of a high-quality natural perfume is nothing new at this point. If you really want to check out Ormaie at Barneys (and you’re ready to pay $270 for one of those snazzy 100-ml bottles), don’t let me stop you!

All the same, I can’t help making a few other recommendations. Here, in no particular order, are five natural perfume lines that have been around a while and are worth a good sniff. (And all of them sell sample vials, so that you can try their scents before you commit to a full bottle!)

Based in its namesake town of Providence, Rhode Island, this independent brand offers all-natural scents hand-crafted by perfumer Charna Ethier, plus a few all-natural skincare products and fragranced teas.

Even if the kittens-and-Victoriana aesthetic doesn’t appeal to you, V&S’s botanical scents may strike your fancy. Perfumer Laurie Stern’s perfume studio is located in El Cerrito, California, where she also cultivates an organic garden.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz has long been a pioneer of the independent artisanal fragrance movement. She’s a prolific perfumer, constantly issuing new releases from her Colorado studio, and her scent catalogue includes an “All Botanical/Natural” category.

My favorites: Eau Cerise, Summer Cologne

*****

If you’d like to recommend any all-natural fragrances that you particularly love, please do so in the comments!

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I can’t believe they published that! It’s such a shameless lie that I had to read it myself. I can’t understand how in our electronic age anybody would write anything like that without bothering to type in the search box “all-natural perfumes” and check out what came up. Of course, it’s a paid advertising masked as a genuine article but at least some fact check, no?

I’m not a big fan of all-natural perfumes: at this point there are just 2 that I own and wear – Arbole Arbole from the mentioned by you Hiram Green and Under den Linden by April Aromatics, the brand I wanted to mention.

I’m glad I’m not alone in raising an eyebrow. If that’s what a brand wants to say, no one can stop them…but I wish some editor had put that comment into a more accurate context. Maybe they were trying to say that making an upscale/luxury all-natural fragrance is unusual? (Still not new, though…Strange Invisible Perfumes was founded in 2000 and was carried at Barneys as early as 2005. And if someone wants a FRENCH brand, specifically, Honoré des Pres has already accomplished that, working with Olivia Giacobetti, no less…)

As you know, I get so aggravated by things like this. Maybe something was misstated or taken out of context, but as it reads in the Times, it’s very inaccurate and just plain weird.

Jessica – Thank you for this discussion and for spotlighting the wonderful natural perfumers in our midst. In the case of Ormaie, the cynicism is so staggering because they clearly know better and don’t care, but the manipulation of history and appropriation of authentic language is par for the course these days, I’m afraid. That said, there’s no use in just taking it. Let’s pick a few fights. Whether the perfume be natural or synthetic (Phlur anyone?), true authenticity is under attack from all sides. Dave

The tops of those bottles reminded me of the Muuto Plus pepper mill in a way! I totally agree with you, why claim natural perfume is something new? Anything eco/bio/natural seems to be of interest these days, but hopefully mainly the interesting products will survive in the long run.

It’s so odd. They’re not even the first high-end natural perfume line, and certainly not the first perfume line to collaborate with “artists and artisans,” as their website mentions. Speaking of which, there are some awkward translation errors on their website that are driving me crazy. Why not pay a proofreader to double-check things?? It’s a common situation that never stops bothering me.